GreenFlex Sustainable development strategy and roadmap Strategy for contributing to neutrality

Contribute to global climate neutrality: activate the two complementary levers of reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions through your own activities and in your value chain

According to the latest IPCC report, achieving carbon neutrality would make it possible to contain and stabilise global warming by limiting it to 1.5 or 2°C.

When you draw up your greenhouse gas emissions balance sheet or your organisation’s low-carbon strategy, you often notice that your carbon impact is significant upstream and downstream of your activities (scope 3). To reduce this impact, GreenFlex offers its complementary skills in agriculture, forestry, the bioeconomy, and the circular economy to help reduce emissions and sequester as much greenhouse gas as possible in your value chain.

How can we contribute to global carbon neutrality?

To contribute to global carbon neutrality at the level of your entity, it is relevant to activate these two complementary levers:
  • Reduce GHG emissions, particularly those from your value chain (scope 3 of your greenhouse gas emissions assessment)
  • Without delay, support projects inside or outside your organisation to sequester more greenhouse gases. These gases accumulate in the atmosphere and some, such as carbon dioxide, can remain there for up to 100 years.

Carrying out or supporting projects in this field will enable you to transform your upstream and downstream industries to meet many other challenges, often linked to climate change. For example, the joint assertion by the IPCC and IPBES of the undeniable link between climate and biodiversity.

To reduce this stock rapidly, the natural mechanism activated is that of photosynthesis: plants (plants, trees, algae, etc.) have the capacity to transform CO2 into long carbon chains and thus integrate it into food and non-food biomass. This “living carbon” is thus born in what are known as natural and cultivated carbon sinks (oceans, forests, agriculture, etc.).

GreenFlex, your partner in improving your efforts to achieve global carbon neutrality

GreenFlex has a team of around fifteen agronomic engineers who keep abreast of the latest scientific and institutional advances on the subject. We support our customers (companies, local authorities, start-ups, etc.) to enable them to contribute, wherever they are active in France or internationally, to accelerating CO2 sequestration while supporting the primary sector in its efforts to reduce emissions (agriculture, etc.).

GreenFlex can help you with all your needs.

 

Vue aérienne d'une forêt au milieu de laquelle coule une rivière

1. Select quality projects that meet your expectations in terms of budget, location, and types of action.

The complementary skills of our experts (agronomy, forest management, climate, and energy transition) and the diversity of our networks (academic, ministerial, associations, start-ups, etc.) enable us to:

  • Work with you to co-construct one or more projects on your land or in your value chain
  • Put you in touch with a wide range of project sponsors in France and abroad, tailored to your needs and specific requirements

These projects will make it possible, for example, to:

  • sequester emissions in forestry, agriculture, and natural ecosystems (peat bogs, marshes, mangroves, etc.)
  • avoid GHG emissions by developing renewable or recovered energy production capacity
  • reduce greenhouse gas emissions by limiting the use of synthetic fertilisers, tillage, importing plant proteins and optimising the management of organic waste (methanization, composting, etc.)

Whether it is your own projects or supporting the projects of others, GreenFlex can provide invaluable decision-making support to help you select the reduction and sequestration actions that are most relevant to your value chain and strategic issues (supply of carbon-free raw materials with low environmental impact, reducing the impact of your activities on biodiversity, etc.).

Some of these projects generate voluntary carbon credits. GreenFlex is able to verify the seriousness of the methods applied, the certification systems and the co-benefits linked to these projects.

Our teams can also put you in touch with the people behind these projects, whether certified or not (farmers’ groups, associations, etc.), as well as with partner certification bodies or intermediaries (funders, digital solutions providers, etc.).

2. Advise and support you on the labelling/certification applicable to these projects and the voluntary carbon credits sometimes associated with them

GreenFlex can support you at various levels:

  • Monitoring and critical analysis of proposed methodologies relating to climate change mitigation measures in cultivated and natural ecosystems (type of actions, reliability, traceability, maintenance of practices over time, audit procedures, etc.).
  • Decision support for the purchase of voluntary carbon credits linked to projects backed by French (Label Bas Carbone), European (Moor Futures, Puro Earth, etc.) or international (VCS, Gold Standard, etc.) standards.
  • Public and private support available to supplement your financial commitment (Common Agricultural Policies, Water Agencies, sponsorship, etc.)
  • Solid quantification of tonnes sequestered, avoided or reduced, and of any carbon credits generated by the projects selected, using established open source methods
Gros plan de la coupe d'un tronc d'arbre

3. Identify, qualify, and promote the environmental, social, and economic co-benefits of these projects

The aim is to draw up an inventory of all the possible co-benefits from among those listed below, so that you can promote them more effectively as part of your CSR and extra-financial communication strategy,

  • Preserving/restoring wild and cultivated biodiversity
  • Sustainable soil management (fertility, prevention of water stress, erosion, mud flows)
  • Local roots: additional income for farmers, food sovereignty and maintaining rural employment
  • Energy self-sufficiency (methanation, etc.)
  • Supply of biomaterials or bioenergy from projects (wood from hedges, etc.)
  • Animal welfare (agroforestry, hedgerows, etc.)

GreenFlex has the skills, references, and teams to support the agri-food sector, other economic sectors, and local authorities in all these areas.

Incorporate a regenerative economy into your low-carbon strategy

To ensure that your activities are more closely aligned with the regenerative economy, GreenFlex offers you the opportunity to activate the following three areas of expertise simultaneously or separately, depending on your context, ambitions, and priorities:

  • Sustainable management of natural and cultivated carbon sinks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (methane, nitrous oxide, etc.) and accelerate carbon dioxide sequestration while preserving ecosystems (biodiversity, soil, water, air quality, etc.).
  • The bioeconomy to source biomolecules, biomaterials and bioenergy that can replace molecules, materials, or energy from fossil fuels, in a way that respects ecosystems and the climate.
  • The circular economy: the eco-design of your products, the reuse or re-utilization of secondary raw materials and the optimized recovery of all your waste can help you to significantly reduce your carbon footprint, while at the same time, where possible, taking part in an industrial ecology approach.

The resulting action plans should ultimately enable you to differentiate yourself in terms of the low-carbon impact of your products and services. GreenFlex can mobilise its expertise in Lifecycle Analysis to project or measure these impacts.